48 Hours to a Masterpiece

3…2…1…OK, cameras off, quit Final Cut Pro, step away from the edit suite. Over the last weekend filmmaking teams all over San Antonio participated in The 48 Hour Film Project. Fueled by caffeine, adrenaline and lack-of-sleep, each team had just 48 hours to write, shoot, edit and score their short film. Not only that, they didn’t find out the essential secret ingredients until Friday night. Each film had to have the following elements:

• Character: Fred or Frida Flash, Walking Encyclopedia
• Prop: a cookie
• Line of Dialogue: “I’ll go back and check.”

Now that the movies are wrapped up you can head out to the Alamo Drafthouse Westlakes to see them all. There will be two premiere screenings on Wednesday August 19th, one at 7:30pm the other at 9:00pm. Tickets are a mere $10 and you’ll get to see the work of teams like Band of Rogues, Bijou Askew Studios, Animate or Die, Film Classics Productions, MonkeyBot Films, Mise Media and many, many more.

You can see the Best of the San Antonio 48HFP Saturday, August 22nd at Urban 15 (2500 S. Presa). Doors open at 6:30pm, and the ceremony starts at 7:30pm. Tickets to this show are just $5. Prizes will be handed out for the typical array of achievements: Best Directing, Best Script, Best Cinematography, Best Editing, Best Acting, Best Music, Best Sound Design, Best Effects, Best Use of Genre, Best Use of Character, Best Use of Prop, and Best Use of Line. The overall City Winner will get a trophy, some software and will be shown at the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) show in 2010.

Within this broad catalog of cinema delights you will find several that are right up the Unknown alley. Rumor has it that Film Classics Productions has a fantasy piece, and I know there is at least one cover-your-eyes horror film that snuck in 3 minutes before the deadline.

Check after the jump to see stills from one of the entries.

Team Animate or Die sent a couple of stills of their six-minute animated vampire ninja epic. Jose Carillo was the animator, Don Rios did the backgrounds and Mistah Pete provided character designs, editing and various other intangibles. The score is a mix of original music from Dan Smith and some borrowing from Nosferatu!